Theodore Haak

Theodore Haak (Neuhausen 1605 – London 1690) was a German Calvinist scholar, resident in England in later life. Haak’s communications abilities and interests in the new science provided the backdrop for convening the "1645 Group", a precursor of the Royal Society.

Although not himself known as a natural philosopher, Haak's engagement with others facilitated the expansion and diffusion of the “new science” throughout Europe. Haak’s language skills were used in translation and interpretation and his personal correspondence with the natural philosophers and theologians of the day, including Marin Mersenne and Johann Amos Comenius; he facilitated introductions and further collaborations. Beginning in 1645 he worked as a translator on the Dutch Annotations Upon the Whole Bible (1657). The first German translation of John Milton's Paradise Lost is perhaps his best known single work.

Haak was born on 25 July 1605 in Neuhausen in Germany’s Palatinate region. Very little is known about Haak’s father—Theodore, Sr., who came to study at the University of Heidelberg from Neuburg in Thuringia. It is unclear whether he finished his studies, but he did marry the rector’s daughter, Maria Tossanus and from there moved on to an administrative post in Neuhausen.

Haak’s mother, Maria Tossanus, descended from three of the Palatinate’s most distinguished and intellectual families—Tossanus (Toussaint), Spanheim, and Schloer. Maria's father was the pastor Daniel Toussaint, a French Huguenot exile from Orléans in Heidelberg, who had left France after the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 1572. He assumed the chair of theology at Heidelberg in 1586 and became rector in 1594. Young Theodore Haak’s relatives included Friedrich Spanheim (1600–1649), professor of theology at Geneva and Leyden; Ezechiel Spanheim (1629–1710), counselor and ambassador for the Elector Karl Ludwig; Friedrich Spanheim (1632–1701), a professor of theology at Heidelberg; and Dr. J. F. Schloer who together with his son Christian also occupied high positions in the Palatinate court.

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